I cannot begin to remember what I posted last, but I can honestly tell you so much has happened. The story is this: My daughter Ashleigh’s ex-boyfriend, Cody asked to talk to me. He and Ashleigh had a child together, Benjamin. Benjamin was in Children’s Hospital and had two different heart surgeries, was born premature, and had downs syndrome. He was a beautiful child.

Was

Shortly after Benjamin got out of the hospital, roughly two days, he passed away. Because of the Covid-19 Virus, all autopsies are running behind. Mainly because of the stress happening with the pandemic itself. No one’s fault in particular. I met up with Cody for the first time in person after Benjamin had died.

I didn’t want to post about me trying to form a relationship with Cody because if I did, Ashleigh might find my post and cause problems with him for involving me in his life. Since she has untreated borderline personality disorder, this is truly a thing to be concerned about. Not just an idea formulated by paranoia.

Ashleigh was dragging her feet on making the arrangements about the funeral. Previous to all of this happening, Ashleigh’s living arrangements became quite scattered. Her current boyfriend lives in federally assisted housing for people with disabilities. With certain federal housing programs, there are rules to live by. You cannot have additional people live with you that are not on the housing voucher. Anyone not abiding by the terms of their programs can get evicted. And this is precisely what was happening with her and her current boyfriend. So in the interim, she was working with the federal housing program to relocate two hours away from where they’re currently living. Since both Ashleigh and her current boyfriend don’t drive and have really any friends to speak of, this makes moving more complicated. That is not for me to worry about. BUT…. there are the arrangements regarding the funeral for her son.

I haven’t talked to Ashleigh in two years. There was so much trauma that happened while she was living in our home, trauma that she caused. Trauma that she probably won’t acknowledge. I love her and I wish that things were different. I wish that I could have a relationship with her. If you know ANYTHING of borderline personality disorder – relationships are NOT easy. Relationships with the mentally ill are always more complicated – but this one is truly a different beast of burden.

I worked my second job that Tuesday (two weeks ago) and I left early because I KNEW no one was going to pick her up from where she lives. Even if they were, she was going to procrastinate because according to my sources (my brother and Ashleigh’s ex boyfriend). Ashleigh was refusing rides that my brother was trying to set up and her ex boyfriend didn’t have any options either. So I figured the only way to get this taken care of was to put myself right in the middle of it all. Which meant I was going to have to take time out of my life to go pick her up and bring her to Green Bay where the funeral arrangements were being made. The ex boyfriend made the arrangements with the funeral home and I went to pick up the ex boyfriend and ONLY Ashleigh. Not Ashleigh and the current boyfriend. According to my brother,k Ashleigh hadn’t changed her clothes in over a month and a half. So as a condition, I told my brother that she’d have to shower to get into my car. I furnished two sets of clothing for her, deodorant, body spray, hair brush, and a few other self care items.

Everything went … okay, but I can honestly tell you, prior to picking Ashleigh up to go to Green Bay, I was a complete wreck. I started feeling anxiety and depression and a bit of PTSD crop up. I kept thinking of the worst case scenario about what potentially could happen. Of course, that only made things worse. Fortunately for me, I had Cody (the ex boyfriend) with me. He helped me maintain a steady flow of conversation with Ashleigh and on the way back to his apartment, I was able to decompress with him and evaluate what happened over the course of the day.

Ashleigh was on her best behavior. She really didn’t throw a fit at all. It was challenging. We had to see a deceased Benjamin. He looked – not to sound on the nose… but like an angel. Despite the fact that he had died, he looked natural in coloration and appearance. Cody was afraid that Benjamin had suffered, but the look of peace on the infants face helped him be at ease. I, of course, cried. I apologized for meeting him after the fact and for giving him the nose that was passed on to me. It broke the ice a bit and I let Ashleigh and Cody be alone to deal with seeing Benjamin all on their own. After all, they are grieving parents.

Grief is so tricky. Male vs female grief, mentally ill grief on top of everything else? Delayed grief… whatever the case may be. It is just hard to know what is and what was.

And then, the funeral.

I was panic stricken yet again. I was grieving on my own for the loss of Ben. My husband was not really sharing in that experience because he doesn’t know Cody and holds resentment towards Ashleigh. Going to the funeral, I left work early and grabbed kwik trip brownies to serve at the funeral. Come to find out, because of Covid-19, you cannot serve any food items unless they are pre-packaged. I guess that stands to reason, right? Of course, I already paid $20 for something I was essentially going to have to give away. UGH! And not in the way I expected. That pretty much is the standard way things go though. I should have been prepared.

By the time I got to the funeral, I thanked the foster parents for taking care of Benjamin while they had him in their custody because of Ashleigh. I hugged them both and joked a bit where I could. I introduced myself to Cody’s sister and hugged her. I was introduced to Ashleigh’s current boyfriend and tried to relax while he told me of his tales of woes growing up. He also tried to tell me about how he felt that he wanted to try to help Ashleigh and I get a relationship re-established. As a result of his traumatic childhood and not having a connected relationship with his family, he wanted Ashleigh to have that benefit. I, of course, couldn’t see my way around doing that. It was just too hard and I told him as much. I told him maybe when I am ready, I would attempt to reach out to him. Just now is not the time. (Later, in talking to my brother – Ashleigh’s current boyfriend is still plotting ways to make the relationship come to fruition)

When I was finally done with the funeral, I was fortunate to have a person who was gracious enough to come to my deceased daughter’s funeral meet me for coffee. It was quite unexpected that she was there, but we had been in touch recently and she was so kind. So I took her up on her offer of getting together. It was nice to have an unbiased party to just decompress with. Especially since I had to cancel my original therapy appointment because of the initial getting together with Ashleigh and Cody for the funeral arrangements in the first place.

Since everything, I’m still trying to come down off of seeing Ashleigh face to face and having to interact with her. The feelings that it brings back are hard to just push down deep inside. They’re like hemorrhoids, they keep coming back. No matter how much you try to treat them. Epic… pain… in … the … ass.

I’m up for trauma therapy called brainspotting. All of my appointments are by phone, so there is no trauma therapy. And essentially that means everything is at a pause point, no matter how crappy things get thrown at me. I digress. Things have to figure themselves out, eventually. Don’t they?

Oh well, Happy Halloween!